University of Groningen
Improving access to quality maternal and newborn care in low-resource settings: the case of
Tanzania
Bishanga, Dunstan Raphael
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Publication date:
2019
Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database
Citation for published version (APA):
Bishanga, D. R. (2019). Improving access to quality maternal and newborn care in low-resource settings:
the case of Tanzania. University of Groningen.
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CV of the Author
Dunstan R. Bishanga
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CV of the Author
Dunstan Bishanga was born and grew up in Bukoba, Kagera, Tanzania. He is a PMD Pro–certified public health systems management expert, with over 10 years of experience in specialized service deliv-ery and managing and implementing large-scale, integrated health projects. He has a Master of Science degree (MSc) in Health Informatics and a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Dar es Salaam. His experience includes providing technical leadership and management to programs address-ing maternal, newborn and child health, family plannaddress-ing, malaria, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, youth, and gender issues. Dunstan attended his PhD Program while working as a Director of Maternal, Newborn and Child Health programs for Jhpiego Tanzania, and also serving as a Chief of Party for the five-year USAID-funded Boresha Afya project with a value of over $56 million, focusing on improving health of Tanzanians, particularly for women, children and youths in seven regions in the Lake and Western zones. Previously at Jhpiego, Dunstan worked as a Chief of Party for two other USAID flagship pro-grams in reproductive, maternal, and newborn health (RMNH) in Tanzania, namely the MCSP and MAISHA programs.
Before joining Jhpiego, Dunstan led successful public health programs at other organizations, including EngenderHealth, Marie Stopes International, and Family Health International (now FHI360). His work has always involved extensive collaboration with key stakeholders, including the host-country gov-ernment and its agencies at the national and local levels, UN agencies (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, UNICEF; World Health Organization, WHO; United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA; and International Labour Organization, ILO) donor agencies (United States Agency for International Development, USAID; United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, PEP-FAR; President’s Malaria Initiative, PMI; Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, CIFF; United
King-dom Department for International Development, DFID; and the European Union), and international as well as local non-governmental organizations.
Dunstan has more than 10 years of experience in conducting human subjects research, and he has been certified as an investigator by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH) and the Jhpiego Institutional Review Board (IRB). He has also successfully completed various research-related courses including: Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Human Subjects Research Course (CITI Program); Implementation research and intervention evaluation (Jhpiego); Epidemiology and applied statistics (University Medical Center Groningen - UMCG); Ethics of research and scientific integrity of researchers (UMCG); Research Ethics (National Institute of Medical Research and Muhimbili Universi-ty of Health and Allied Sciences); and principle investigator’s training (Jhpiego). Over the past decade, Dunstan has been involved in research design, implementation, data analysis, presentation, and pub-lication related to various topics of public health importance, including maternal and newborn health, family planning, HIV/AIDS, digital health (ICT4D), and gender and male involvement in reproductive health. He has contributed to over 13 scientific publications including as a lead author. The Global Emergency Medicine Literature Review selected one of Dunstan’s co-authored articles on the Helping
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Babies Breathe program in Tanzania as a top article of 2017 (Becker, T.K., et al. Academic Emergency Medicine, 2018; 25(11), 1287–1298, https://doi.org/10.1111/acem.13456).
Dunstan is a seasoned leader in the health discipline with training and experiential learning in various leadership and manage-ment skills, including: emotional intelligence, strategic thinking and decision-making, valuing people (diversity and inclusion), coaching and mentorship, team building, conflict management, relationship building and management, communications, negotiation and partnership management, business acumen, change management, building influence as a leader, and leading innovation. His contribution to the promotion of the maternal and newborn health agenda at the national level has involved serving on the board of the White Ribbon Alliance Tanzania (WRA/Tz) as well as on a number of technical working groups, including for safe motherhood. His leadership has effected notable changes in various health spheres, including contributions to developing new health policies, strategies and protocols, operationalization of policies at service delivery points, strengthening facility and community structures for high-quality service delivery, and monitoring and use of data for decision-making. Dun-stan has also advocated for maternal and newborn health on both national and international platforms, sharing his expertise in this area. He has discussed issues on media such as: inadequate recognition of the newborn in the MDGs (on the Maternal Health Task Force blog, http://www.mhtf.org/2014/09/19/where-was-the-newborn-in-the-millennium-development-goals); the journey of reducing maternal and newborn deaths in Tanzania during the MDG era (on Star TV, https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=g48SrMns7XQ); and the need to create innovative solutions to save women’s lives (on the documentary by the Human Development Innovation Fund, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxFywS_Wj2Y). Dunstan was also part of devel-oping an award-winning media campaign to speak out about violence against women, which won the Break the Silence Award for Avon Communications in 2013 (https://www.futureswithoutviolence.org/winners-of-the-2013-avon-communications-awards-announced/). He is fluent in both English and Kiswahili.
List of publications
Bishanga, D., & Kimaro, H. (2012). Mobile phone technology: a gateway to address gender obstacles in
improving access to reproductive and child health services by women and their partners. In IST-Africa 2012
Conference Proceedings (pp. 1–7). ISBN: 9781905824342
Makene, C. L., Plotkin, M., Currie, S., Bishanga, D., Ugwi, P., Louis, H., Winani K., Nelson, B. D. (2014).
Improvements in newborn care and newborn resuscitation following a quality improvement program at
scale: Results from a before and after study in Tanzania. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 14:381. https://
doi.org/10.1186/s12884-014-0381-3
Necochea, E., Tripathi, V., Kim, Y. M., Akram, N., Hyjazi, Y., Da Luz Vaz, M., Otolorin, E., Pleah, T.,
Rashid, T., Bishanga, D. (2015). Implementation of the Standards-Based Management and Recognition
approach to quality improvement in maternal, newborn, and child health programs in low-resource
coun-tries. International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, 130(S2):S17–S24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
ijgo.2015.04.003
LeFevre, A. E., Mpembeni, R., Chitama, D., George, A. S., Mohan, D., Urassa, D. P., Gupta S., Feldhaus,
I., Pereira, A., Kilewo, C., Chebet, J. J., Cooper, C. M., Besana, G., Lutale, H., Bishanga, D., Mtete, E.,
Semu, H., Baqui, A. H., Killewo, J., Winch, P. J. (2015). Profile, knowledge, and work patterns of a cadre
of maternal, newborn, and child health CHWs focusing on preventive and promotive services in Morogoro
Region, Tanzania. Human Resources for Health, 13:98. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-015-0086-3
Ricca, J., Dwivedi, V., Varallo, J., Singh, G., Pallipamula, S. P., Amade, N., Da Luz Vaz, M., Bishanga, D.,
Plotkin, M., Al-Makaleh, B., Suhowatsky, S., Smith, J. M. (2015). Uterotonic use immediately following
birth: Using a novel methodology to estimate population coverage in four countries. BMC Health Services
Research, 15:9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-014-0667-1
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